Good-bye Gluten

A plate of pasta for all

5/9/12

For lovers of carbohydrates, little satisfies like a giant plate of pasta.

But for the gluten-intolerant, such an indulgence is off limits. Or so we thought.

At Locanda, where the food in heavily Roman-influenced, stick-to-your-ribs stalwarts like pasta carbonara ($16), cacio e pepe ($16) and all'Amatriciana ($16) now have a new audience. Chef Anthony Strong is making tonnarelli (a spaghetti-like noodle) using Cup4Cup, the proprietary, gluten-free flour blend pioneered by Thomas Keller and Keller's research chef, Lena Kwak, and bolstering it with egg yolks.

Extruded through bronze dyes, which give the finished noodle a rough exterior that allows sauce to cling to it, the gluten-free noodles are reasonable substitutes for the classically made pasta and can be requested in any of the restaurant's pasta preparations.

Chef Staffan Terje at Perbacco now stocks gluten-free pasta after years of having guests ask for it. He uses a dry pasta from Italian company Rustichella D'Abruzzo, made entirely with organic corn and available in spaghetti and fusilli.

Our verdict? Well, let's be honest: There's very little that wouldn't taste good when blanketed by duck sugo ($18), or sauced with a veal-and-black-chanterelle-mushroom ragù ($18).

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